She didn’t have the funds to pay for her own airfare, so her friends in the Aussie mummy blogger community clubbed together, chipping in amounts from $5 to $50, raising a sizeable chunk of cash.

It’s important to note here that the vast majority of these people had never met Kristin, and had most likely not even spoken to her.

But the trust, care and downright love that had developed between them via her blog, their blogs, Twitter and email was enough motivation for her supporters to click through to the donation page, pick up their credit card and hand over their own cash so that her dream of attending the conference could be realised.

We spotted the appeal and our client GlaxoSmithKline stepped up and covered the cost of Kristin and her family’s airfare to Australia, meaning that the funds raised by her fellow bloggers can pay her costs while she’s here in Australia.

GSK is throwing a party for Kristin and Australian mummy bloggers the night before the conference, with Kristin giving a keynote speech on the future of blogging in Australia (using the US landscape as the ‘future’).

February 02, 2011

The films examine the topic from different angles, thinking beyond the product - looking at how cities have historically been designed around cars and what cities of the future might be like, what prediction tells us about present concerns, and how technology and mobility are inextricably related.

You can watch it in full sized full res widescreen on the site.

Today we launched the trailer for "Wherever You Want To Go" - a series of films about the future of mobility, being released under the newly created "BMW Documentaries" We'll be launching one film a week during February - and we'd love to know what you think. The mini-documentaries feature various awesome thinkers and visionaries including:

* Buzz Aldrin, retired astronaut

* Marissa Mayer, VP of location services at Google

* Syd Mead, futurist and conceptual designer for Blade Runner

* Graham Hill, Founder, TreeHugger.com

* Robin Chase, Founder, ZipCar

* George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic

...with more to come as the films roll out. The site - BMWActivatetheFuture.com - will host discussions around the future of mobility - and each film will come with associated content to explore the topics further.

The films and conversations were inspired as BMW began to plan for the field trial for the ActiveE - their first electric vehicle concept. The films, conversations, the ActiveE itself, all make up part of BMW's larger focus on collaborating to create the future of mobility.

December 13, 2010

PLANNING agency Naked Communications is repositioning itself as an agent of behavioural change.

The positioning, which is based on some key tenets of behavioural psychology, was developed here and will be rolled out globally, according to Naked Australia founding partner Adam Ferrier.

While some advertising agencies may argue they have been finding ways to persuade people to change their behaviour by trying a new product or buying a new brand for decades, the Naked model turns on its head traditional marketing theory in an effort to expedite and streamline the process.

"We believe in flipping that model on its head, where we start with action first. The rest - interest and desire - will look after itself.''

Naked has used or is using the model with clients Kraft, Novartis and the Transport Accident Commission in Melbourne as well as Coca-Cola in Sydney, and is believed to have used it in its recent successful pitch for the Weight Watchers account.

Campaigns such as "Cabaoke'' for Telstra - in which young people were offered a free ride home in a customised karaoke cab and the experience was captured and shared via social networks - and the Effie Award-winning "Ask Richard'' for Sydney community radio station FBi, which asked listeners to come up with creative ways to ask billionaire Sir Richard Branson to give FBi $1 million to keep the station on air, are examples of the model in action.

"We're finding that its the most effective way to deal with loyalty is through getting people to interact with a brand rather than passively receiving a message,'' Mr Ferrier said.

"This has all come about because of massive changes in technology,'' he said. "With all media having the ability to be interactive we can always get (people) to do something.